Going Long With Tech

All week Cramer is drafting a dream team of stocks just like football fans do for their fantasy squads. He’s looking for some key players that he thinks will perform well right up to the Super Bowl in early February.

Every stock in a portfolio has a role to play the same way players do on the field. Defensive stocks protect against downturns in the market. Leader stocks are like quarterbacks, taking the rest of the market with them to new gains. Tonight, the focus was on wide receivers and tight ends, players that can score big when the time is right – like the 180-point surge the Dow had today.

Wide receiver stocks have momentum, Cramer said. They’re the fastest growers. And Research in Motion is in a growth sweet spot right now. The company is selling handsets faster than people can subscribe. Not to mention, despite August being a sluggish month for tech, RIMM outperformed. There will come a time when Cramer recommends selling RIMM, but that time isn’t now.

Apple can go long too. It may seem overpriced, but it nearly always delivers: a million iPhones sold, price cuts will stoke demand, and back-to-school sales on Macs are going strong. “I know that Apple’s become a volatile stock...but in the end, Apple gets the touchdowns,” Cramer said.

Intuitive Surgical has soared on the strength of its Da Vinci machine, which performs the most delicate of procedures, such as prostatectomies. This high-tech medical device stock has seen huge growth in hysterectomies, and the international markets, the future for this company, have barely been tapped, Cramer said.

Cramer’s last wide-receiver stock is VMware , which more than doubled during its first week public. VMW has 85% of the virtualization market and a big lead on competitors. “It’s got a bright future,” Cramer said.